For the third time in recent years a Yale School of Management team took home the top prize at the Turner MIINT impact investing pitch competition hosted by the Wharton Social Impact Initiative at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Joshua Brown ’23; Grace Buie ’23, a joint-degree candidate with the School of the Environment; Aakash Dattani ’23; Talia Kula ’23; and Ryan Mikkelsen ’23 won the Moelis Family Foundation Prize, earning a $50,000 investment for Carbix, the early-stage startup that they sourced, researched, and pitched to judges. The team bested the largest field of competitors in the competition’s history to win the prize.
“The win was the culmination of months of hard work,” said Mikkelsen, adding that he and his teammates bested four other teams in an internal competition at Yale SOM to advance to the final competition at Wharton.
“We began working together as a team in early October last year, focusing on climate change as a sector,” said Mikkelsen. “We met weekly last semester to develop an investment thesis, reach out to startups, and interview founders until we found a company that we felt was a compelling investment, both from an impact and financial perspective.”
The team selected Carbix, “a carbon sequestration company that permanently removes CO2 from the air by turning it into rock,” Mikkelsen said.
Read about Yale SOM team wins at MIINT in 2018 and 2019.
